Ultimate Unity Hardware specs?

Hello all.

I am currently in the market for a new PC/Mac for Unity purposes. Now I'm probably looking at spending somewhere between 800-2k. I was wondering does there become a certain point where it doesn't matter how good the specs are, as it all gets bottlenecked within unity. For example should I get an i5 because an i7 is wasted within unity (I have no idea)??? Also, if you guys could build a pc solely for Unity what would the specs be?
Sorry for being such a noob.

Many thanks

 

Unity doesn't have any speed-throttling, nor would that make any real sense. If you have a faster CPU then Unity will run faster. If you have a faster GPU then the graphics in Unity will run faster.

--Eric

 

Ok thanks Eric. I guess we're looking to create a massive real world simulator where we don't have to worry about frame rate being an issue.

 

Also what processor/gpu would you recommend for a too end Unity rig?

 

i7 8 core haswell, latest and 32gb. Cos Unity's only getting more threaded as time goes by. You'll want an SSD and the latest nvidia gpu.

If anyone says unity won't take advantage of it then it's probably because they do not know much about Unity 5 or future plans.

 

Thanks for the detailed reply much appreciated!

 

Hippocoder is correct, BUT you won't get that for your $2000 budget! Otherwise you get what you pay for and when it comes to PC's you can pay for a lot!

Desktops: For $2K to find a machine with an Intel 6 core i7-5820K, depends if you are including a big monitor and other bits in your price. e.g. http://secure.ncixus.com/ncixpc/ncixpclist.cfm?categoryid=1003

Laptops: Get a laptop with the new 980M GPU (e.g. http://www.ncixus.com/products/?sku=102708&vpn=GS60 2QE-010US Ghost Pro 3K IPS&manufacture=MSI)

 

It's probably worth raising the budget and not cutting corners if simulation work is serious enough...

 

there is only one catch to having a top of the line pc... your game might run awesome on your rig, but completely bog anything less, but thats the only real downside.

 

I'd recommend building from scratch. While it is only the computer itself, it is pretty close to what Hippo mentioned. It could be dropped a bit further by going with a non-modular lower watt PSU or a slightly slower Core i7. On the flip side you could spend $100 more and get a 4TB drive as opposed to 2TB.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=23118391

 

Pretty much what I was thinking Hippo.
So what if it doesn't use it because it probably will next year.

Also doesn't make sense to me to spend that kind of money(or any at all building a new system) and not get the biggest and fastest you can afford at the time.

 

Just in case you didn`t know that, the best thing to invest in when buying a PC for work is a SSD. Then you should consider buying more RAM than usual because often you`ll want to have more then one program opened.

 

I wouldn't recommend cutting corners with your PSU. Its the ultimate buffer between destruction in your computer, and perhaps the most difficult to replace.

If anything, go easy on the RAM for now, it's the easiest thing to update later on, when you get some more cash. Why not get two 8gb modules, and then later fill the other slots with two more?

 

Which is why I suggested dropping to a non-modular PSU. You can technically go lower wattage as well given the power efficiency of the Maxwell GPU (my GTX 460 uses ~300 watt whereas the GTX 980 uses ~280). I only selected the 1000W because of SLI.

I did similar back when I built my current system. I haven't gotten around to upgrading though because I feel I'll probably try for faster memory in the process. I'm only running 8GB of DDR3-1333 due to Phenom II's memory limitations.

 

I'm not sure that Unity as uses uses like 100% of cpu ... would be nice if it did... I does have several things multithreaded etc but there are still plenty of available cpu cycles going unused, but I guess it also depends somewhat on the scene. So like I think 8 cores for example isn't going to help much compared to 4? ... but I'd go for a faster GPU any day.